There were shadows all around them. One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.

Why in seven hells would Robert Baratheon traipse from KL to Winterfell to ask Ned to be hand, rather than summon him via raven? It's similar to the width of the continetal USA. I can empathise now with Cersei being well fed up by the time she got there.

Reddit layout for comments is pretty efficient for screen space. It has its critics though.

For example, the Stack Overflow creator has pointed out that is pretty bad for checking out the new comments. Most online forums have a big long thread alá Westeros.org, which I find tedious. I will admit there is a temporary nature to the way Reddit works things, and if you are not in at the start of a discussion, there is little point commenting weeks later.

I've long hoped for a site to trial voting with seperate 'agree' and 'well written' votes. If you consistently vote the same on both, then as a user, you just hate people you disagree with, so your votes are diluted. That or some other innovative ideas to cultivate user moderation towards intelligent discussion.

I like how the title of the TV show efficiently condensed book one 'A Game of Thrones' down to 'Game of Thrones'.

The Internet is more than 30 years old, and the web is more than 20 years old. These policies miss what is useful about the medium.

This 'be nice all the time' mod crusade is misguided. I'm lumping all of this and the 'don't be a dick' policy under the same micromanagement heading.

Firstly it requires more work from mods. 'It's hard to mod this sub' - well it is when you create rules that limit a big chunk of the spectrum of user reactions to other users. Don't pat yourself on the back for battling a problem of your own making.

Secondly, it creates a safe environment for massive long-winded drivel (some of it by one of the most active mods). Ban theories? No. But allow candid reactions, instead of mandating Pleasantville denial. This sub has a problem with theories - it is way too slanted towards them, and a good 20% of them are indistuinishable from /r/ASOIAFCirclejerk in that OP doesn't even take them seriously. A little bit of keeping it real in the comments is no bad thing.

Finally, the attempt to narrow the use of the downvote button is an error. Plain and simple - downvote if it is not a useful contribution to the forum, not solely off topic as this mod is trying to asser. Posts in a sub may appear on the front page - you have not authority to attempt to limit users voting up or down. Your opinion is academic - it's defined at a site-wide level.